It was a gorgeous sunny day in London, one of those hot, heady ones during the heatwave. Soho was melting, but high up above Leicester Square, in a penthouse she had rented for the summer, Lizzy Jagger and two of her best friends, Alice Dellal and Sara Beth Stroller, were prancing around in their knickers and bras. Lizzy was taking pictures of Alice, Sara Beth was taking pictures of Jagger and their friend Marissa Montgomery was taking pictures of all three.
This wasn’t just for fun, although it was a lot of fun. It was the debut project of a creative collective called the Modographers. The Modographers — a cunning blend of the words, you guessed it, model and photographer — was Lizzy and Sara Beth’s idea.
In brief, the girls had decided that, for today anyway, they had no need for the top-flight snappers, lighting technicians, stylists and hair and make-up artists who fill their daily lives as international models. That it would be far better if they did it all themselves. And in some ways, they were right. Who is to say that 22-year-old Lizzy — the eldest daughter of King Mick and Queen Jerry — 21-year-old Sara Beth, pin-up, actress and muse to the fashion photographer Terry Richardson, and 18-year-old Alice, the Brazilian It girl whose godfather is Mario Testino, didn’t know just as much as anyone about taking pictures of one another?
They took as their starting point the ad campaign for the new collection from Marissa’s lingerie label, Pussy Glamore. Alice had been at school with Marissa, and Marissa is going out with Lizzy’s brother’s best mate, Ben. Friendship notwithstanding, Lizzy had made it clear that the Modographers were interested only “in doing things they liked”. Luckily for Marissa, they did like.
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The morning of the shoot, Alice walked over from Notting Hill with her dog, Jimmy, and joined Lizzy and Sara Beth — who is based in New York — chez Jagger. The girls did their own hair and make-up, had a creative powwow around the table and set to work.
“You know when you laugh so hard that your stomach hurts?” says Marissa. “It was like that. Sexy, but with a sense of humour. It helped that they’ve all got killer bodies, and because they’re brilliant models as well as best friends, they were very comfortable in themselves. Alice has the best body. Great legs and boobs and stomach. The underwear fits her like a dream.”
Marissa had made some T-shirts with Love Pussy printed on the front and they all put those on. Sara Beth jumped into the hot tub wearing one — with predictable results. Alice insisted on posing in her favourite biker jacket. Lizzy threw herself into a lavender bush. The girls laboured on like this all day, stopping only for lunch — chicken and potatoes roasted by Lizzy and Sara Beth’s special pasta — and a momentary flash of inspiration from Jagger. “I need chiffon,” she said. “It’ll never work,” said Montgomery.
“Trust me,” said Jagger.
And it did work. They set up some architectural shots of themselves, chiffon billowing in the wind, not dissimilar to the sort of images Lizzy’s mother might have done with Norman Parkinson in the 1970s. At the end, everyone tried on the rest of the underwear and fell into the hot tub together.
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Well what would you do if you were 22, divinely beautiful, possessed of glamorous friends, a penthouse to play in and with the summer stretching out before you? Would you laze around in bed all day, drinking daiquiris, chatting on the phone and party planning? Or would you get up and do art projects? It’s a no-brainer, surely.
But these aren’t your average privileged kids. They are part of an emerging generation as concerned with what they have achieved in the day as how many V&Ts they will be downing that night. Marissa, 19, who is studying English and drama at Goldsmiths College, designed her first lingerie collection when she was 13, selling a few pairs of knickers to school friends every month. By the time she had finished her A-levels, a combination of family connections — her godparents, the Schaffers, founded Knickerbox — tenacity and huge charm, had helped her line up backers, fabric suppliers and distribution for a brand. Next month, the label kicks off in Selfridges, where it will sell from between £30 and £90 a pop.
One of Marissa’s best friends from Francis Holland school is Rose Blake, the nonchalant daughter of Peter Blake, who is currently studying art at Kingston and did the illustrations for Marissa’s website. Daisy Lowe, the 17-year-old daughter of Pearl Lowe and Supergrass’s Danny Goffey, runs her own ’zine. Charlotte Woodroffe, 16-year-old daughter of Yo! Sushi’s Simon, is said to be launching a company specialising in under-18 parties. Her friend Peaches Geldof (this year’s income from DJ-ing, broadcasting and writing: £25,000) has promised to attend.
But, girls! What happened to spending your youth recklessly and shamefully? “Just because you’re a rich rock star doesn’t mean you won’t encourage your kid to carve out their own achievements,” says Jenny Dyson, the European editor of Teen Vogue. “After all, you know how gratifying that’s been for you. And in their way, these kids are being as rebellious as their parents were, by doing something with their lives beyond shopping and partying.”
The sheer vim and vigour of what Marissa calls the Pussy Posse — ladies raised, after all, on Nike’s Just Do It and the Spice Girls’ Girl Power — is enough to make gen-X-ers want to go to bed for the rest of time. Yet we are also weirdly obsessed with them. Increasingly, Peaches, Lily Allen, Lizzy and co hold a fascination for their elders. Not just because of their youth, but because of the single-minded way they see the world and their place in it.
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Of course, it helps to have a dad who wrote Jumpin’ Jack Flash, as Lizzy’s did; took the pictures for Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland, like Marissa’s; or designed the cover of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, like Rose’s. “All our parents are very creative and see beauty in anything,” says Marissa, adding sagely: “In a world where there’s not so much love going on, you have to see the beauty in the smallest things. You can’t take anything for granted.” Maybe youth isn’t always wasted on the young.
Pussy Glamore is available from Selfridges from the end of October. Visit www.pussyglamore.co.uk or call 0161 926 7014 for information